Overlord
by blackshadow111
Summary: That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons, even death may die. This was never truer than in the case of Harry Potter. Had Dumbledore known what his choice would mean for the world, he might have acted differently. But then, this may have happened anyway. After all, evil always finds a way.
1. Chapter 1

A.N:

Here we have it, the beginning of my second story, and a crossover at that. Hurray for bandwagons.

This story is inspired from a challenge by the Overlord of the Afterlife, and I must warn you that the updates will be rather slower than Camelot.

Well then, here we go.

* * *

Mankind had once feared the dark.

It had been ages ago, and the times were long forgotten. Oh, there were legends still, of the horrors that dwelt in the night, waiting still, silent and ever patient, waiting for their time to come again. Tales, told around campfires, of Vampires, and of Werewolves, of dragons and demons, of mummies and zombies.

They were the reason why in the east, Indians saw a woman acting suspiciously, and whispered _chudail_. Why in Egypt, rumors persisted even without a shred of proof, of animal headed mummies, of ancient pharaohs and of ghoul queens that lay asleep in caverns below the deserts. They were what hinted, ever so persistently, that the world was a far older and darker place than any knew, and it was folly to forget this.

In today's world, men and women laughed and waved off such tales as silly superstition. They called them old wives' tales, to be heard but never listened to. Because, after all, how could they be true when almighty sciencesaid otherwise?

They were wrong.

The world is not a nice place. We, the humans, are not very good. Not to ourselves, and certainly not to others around us. These were thoughts in the mind of seven year old Harry Potter as he sat on his bed inside the cupboard under the stairs. One may ask why a little child was thinking such thoughts; after all, seven is hardly an age to contemplate the unfairness of the world.

The truth was, Harry wasn't a normal child. Had he been normal, he would not be calling a cupboard home. He most certainly wouldn't be sitting inside it, with only insects for company, nursing a broken arm and a black eye for the terrible crime of scoring full marks across the board in his exams.

For as long as he could remember, Harry had lived his aunt and uncle at their house. Although, saying he'd 'lived' would be wrong. He'd suffered with them for the past six years, and had been reminded of it at every chance they got. As soon as he had been physically able to handle them, he'd been deemed responsible for all the chores in the house, with dire punishments if he failed.

If that wasn't enough, he had been identified as the official punching bag for his whale of a cousin, the very moment the blob of fat had become capable of actually landing punches.

In another universe, the child would have thought these thoughts endlessly, or as it would turn out, just fifteen minutes too long, thus missing the dinner he had prepared. He would have received a screaming at until he submitted and apologized, and would still have gone to sleep on a hungry stomach, deciding to never think so deeply again and also to never score higher than Dudley.

Those decisions would have had the result of ensuring that the boy never developed into anything more than a spineless worm, albeit a lucky one. He would have kept his head down, terrified of making waves, and would have bent and taken anything the world did to him.

Here, something else happened.

Something that changed the fate of the world for eons to come

Because not just was Harry Potter a wizard, he was the last scion of a bloodline older than time itself. A bloodline that had changed its name a thousand times, but still remained enshrouded within a horror that it could never escape. It was the bloodline from which there had arisen names like Herpo the Foul, Sauron the Black god, like Morgana the witch queen and Khephren the immortal, to name but a few. It was to this bloodline that creatures the like of Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth paid homage.

It was the bloodline of the ancient Overlords of the Earth, who had once held sway over the whole planet.

They were why mankind had once feared the dark.

Nearly two thousand years ago, a man had been born in a Jewish household. Today over half the world worshiped him as the son of God. His greatest achievement had not been to create bread, fish or wine. No, his greatest achievement was that he had broken the power of the family that had once held the world under their sway for as long as anyone could remember. And even then, servants of the bloodline had succeeded in having their revenge.

Curiously, the way there power had been broken was not to exterminate them, as generation after generation of superb enchanters had made that all but impossible. It was not to curse them to a painful and terrible existence.

No, their powers had been broken when their children had all been blessed to have a life of pleasure. It was one of the greatest enchantments in history, one which would ensure that one way or the other, the children from the clan of evil would never know of hatred and the power it carried.

In his last days, the man; Jesus his name, commanded his followers to ensure two things. That the enchantment never broke, and that the truth never became forgotten. For if the line of Morgoth ever knew hate again, the world would know an age of suffering indescribable by words.

Unfortunately, while the original followers did obey their lord's will, their successors were less obedient. They neglected their responsibilities, and the information grew ever less factual and more fanciful with the passage of time, while the spells went neglected.

It is the way of the world, that history becomes legend, that legends become myth, and things that should never be forgotten, are.

It was fortunate for the world that the spells held for nearly two millennia. But today the last heir of Melkor hated his relatives, loathed them with every fiber of his being for the suffering and pain they heaped upon him, and it was because of this that deep, deep below and beyond the Earth, in the realm where dwelt the darkness of men's hearts, magic started coursing again.

The ancient magics of the house of Morgoth were awake again. As they expanded, they found something strange. There was a replica of the magics of the line somewhere on the surface, shaped in the form of protective wards. Inspecting them, it was found that they were deviced to protect a youngling.

When they identified the child, the magics rejoiced. There was an heir, albeit one still too young. Although he was in pain. But mending a few small injuries was no problem for the magics. They had to wait, though, as connecting to the child so soon could be disastrous. And there was the fact that they were only fractionally awake currently at the most. The child's magic would have to settle, for Barad-Dur to begin its return. But they had waited for millennia, they could wait for a few years more.

And so the enchantments and the raw magic awaited the coming of age of the heir, which would signify the end of their sleep.

But the magics, while sentient, were nowhere near intelligent. They had no idea what they'd just done.

They had touched, for however brief a moment, a mind very, very young and impressionable. That leaves an impression.

The magics themselves had no concept of morals, and they had also destroyed any chance of his developing any.

Harry had felt, for just one second, a terrible rush of power. It had healed him totally, and left him feeling very much refreshed. But more than that, it had felt _good_. He couldn't wait to feel it again. So he thought, why not? Remembering how it had felt, he focused on the feeling again, willing it to come back to him.

Now harry couldn't draw mana from the tower, of course, as it wasn't even awake. But he did possess a magical core of his own. When he willed his power to come back, magic came alive in his hands once again. He watched in wonder as the scars from his earlier injuries disappeared, and in greater awe still, when food appeared from the fridge upon him simply wishing it to.

He gave a smile quite unsuitable for a face his age. Oh, how the tables had turned.

* * *

**Four Years Later**

Harry was counting down to his eleventh birthday, sleeping in his room. He'd just come back from the zoo, where he'd enjoyed a nice chat with a boa constrictor. Well, not _that _nice, but far better than he'd ever had with any of the Dursleys, anyway.

As he reached zero, harry felt a thrill go through him. It was a moment till he recognized what it was. It was his power, not what he had been using for the last four years, but the original rush he'd felt that night in his cupboard. It was back! He yelled in his own mind.

Meanwhile, things happened all over the world. Deep within the netherworld, the ancient dark tower of Barad-Dur awoke from its forced slumber. From deep in its depths, a hive opened and brown gremlin like creatures poured across every nook and cranny of the tower, beginning a rapid work of repair and restoration.

Deep in the ocean, in the sunken city of Rl'yeh, eons old eyes opened as great Cthulhu awoke to serve its master. Far away in the frozen waste of Antarctica, Shoggoths awoke and crept out of their pot like crypts, starting the restoration of the city of Leng.

It had happened finally. What the founder of Christianity had died to prevent had been done by a family of bigoted morons.

The Overlord had risen again.

* * *

Aaaand, that's it.

Again, for suggestions, criticisms or clarifications, drop me a review or PM.


	2. Chapter 2

**Welcome to the new improved chapter two of Overlord!**

I put the chapter up because my exams are now over, and looking over what I'd posted previously, I couldn't believe just how much I'd left out before.

My apologies to those that don't like reading a chapter twice, but there are quite a few changes, I assure you.

* * *

Over the course of the years from 1987 to 1991, the people of Privet drive had learned one thing. It wasn't something at the forefront of their minds, but it was something, all right. It was a result of isolated incidents, someone tripped at an inopportune time, someone misplaced something, and somebody's pet came under a car. They were all normal, everyday things, unfortunate, but hardly suspicious. Yet they were, because they all revolved around one boy.

Harry Potter was his name, and bad things happened to those that earned his ire. Once, the Maths teacher of Surrey intermediary, upon seeing the impossibly high marks, screamed at him that he must have cheated. His shoes turned blue. He screamed some more, and made a point out of destroying little Harry's things, looking for a can of paint.

He didn't return the next day, and news came that he was dead. A man of thirty five, in the prime of his health, was dead of a heart attack. There were other examples too. Of children whose pets died brutally and painfully, whose prized possessions disappeared and broke, who were suddenly lost in a place they had visited dozens of times before, all because they had tried to bully the Potter boy. No one could prove a thing, of course, and in today's age, it was hardly believable by the adults.

Such were the tales that persisted endlessly, about the boy who had just woken up from a deep sleep in the smallest bedroom of Number four, Privet drive. It had been rather strange, Harry thought. The dream he'd had. He had dreams before, ever since he could remember them, but the dreams he'd had since his seventh birthday had been rather strange, and this one had been the strangest of them all. Earlier, there had been flying motorcycles, a red headed woman telling him that she loved him, a spectacled man saying he was proud of him.

For the last four years, the theme had been quite a bit changed.

He remembered strange cyclopean cities, with mind-bogglingly strange architecture; he saw strange creatures of all sorts, calling him, bending to him. He saw great wars, fought by men, elves and all sorts of creatures that he couldn't quite recall afterwards.

And they all said the same things to him.

They told him that he was great, that he was born to rule, and that the world had become too weak, that it was time for a reckoning.

He'd tried to ignore them, but they grew louder and louder, till he had eventually accepted them. It had been the best decision of his life, but that wasn't what concerned him right now.

He was trying to remember that night's dream.

A tall black tower, strange jelly like creatures in white snowy places, and the clearest of them all, a sunken city, Titan blocks and sky-flung monoliths, all dripping with green ooze and sinister with latent horror. At least, that was what it should seem to any sane person, his logic told him. To Harry, something beneath his skin shivered with pleasure. _Home,_ it cried. _Home!_

As he thought about what it could be, a word came to him. Strange and unbidden, but fitting. Rl'yeh. The city of nightmares, the great Necropolis of yore.

However, as he turned his head, all these thoughts went out of his mind, as he saw an owl on his window sill.

An owl, with a letter in its beak

Reaching out, Harry took the letter, at the same time tossing the owl some wafers from a leftover packet. Opening it, he noted that it was not on paper, parchment. Rather high quality, from what he felt. Reading the letter, he gave a small whistle. So it was finally time.

Because Harry Potter knew very well just what the letter meant. He'd learned it from his aunt, after seeing one day a strange gleam of recognition in her eyes as he exerted his powers. He knew of the secret entrance behind a pub on Charing Cross, and of the fact that going there before he had his letter would be far too suspicious.

But that hadn't bothered him all that much. He had worked hard on Petunia, extracting from her every scrap of knowledge he could. After all, it was the world he would be entering, and to jump in headfirst without any knowledge was idiocy on a level he found positively repulsing.

She had never bothered to read Lily's books, or talked to her about magic. No matter. She had, however, heard the performance analysis reports that her parents had received and raved about, along with Lily's own letters.

It gave him a rough idea about what levels of power that world was used to, and just what level Harry could evaluate himself of being.

For example, There had been a note in her first year from the 'Charms' teacher that she was such a brilliant student, going on and on about how she had performed the Levitation Charm perfectly on her first try. That told him that there was a subject called Charms, that it had a spell called a Levitation charm, and that it was learnt in the first year. If he couldn't work out what something called the 'Levitation' charm meant, he deserved to go back to his cupboard. It didn't tell him the actual spell, but he didn't need it. He'd been making things float since he was seven.

Similarly, the report cards told him the actual list of subjects, along with the grading system.

It had taken a long time to extract every titbit of information from Petunia, but it was well worth it. With it, he was able to get a rough idea of just how things were. It was sketchy at best, but it was all he had.

Now that the letter was here, it was time to go in.

* * *

And that was how Harry found himself standing in front of a drab looking pub, having just reached here after a three hour long journey. Entering, he marched straight through it, emerging in the backyard. He tapped a brick, and walked into Diagon Alley before the doorway was even open completely. He walked straight through the alley, going into the bank he knew was run by goblins. He walked up to a teller, and said "My name is Harry Potter. I need to access my account, but I don't have a key."

He was surprised to see the goblin's nonexistent eyebrows climb, before he said "A drop of your blood will suffice for identification. After that, a new key can be issued." It passed over a small blade as it spoke.

Pricking himself with it, Harry passed it back to the goblin, and watched as it wiped it at the top of a parchment. Soon, lettering appeared on the parchment. Scanning it, the goblin said."Very well, Mr. Potter. Please come with me."

* * *

Ragnok was worried. Just a few minutes ago, he had felt something he thought he would never feel again. A human had come into the bank. That was nothing strange; a lot of humans came to Gringotts. It wasn't even a surprise that it was the boy who lived. After all, he had to come one day.

What was strange was that this one had a very particular magical signature. It was a signature that had been completely extinct from the world for nearly two thousand years ago, when the power of the Dark Lord Morgoth's line had been broken. It was one he had been both awaiting and dreading.

And now it seemed that it had come. Because unlike the humans or indeed the other goblins, Ragnok _remembered _the coming of this customer was not, by any standards, an ordinary event. It was a call to arms, to return to where they had been to do again things that they had done for such a long time, and to return to that which Goblins did best.

Ragnok did not curse the others for forgetting. Indeed, he cursed himself for having to remember it all. The past of their race, the glories and the shame that had been theirs. Because for two thousand years, the goblins had banked, fought, and bred. In general, they had done their best to forget that they were not meant to be free. Anyone saying such things today would die on crossed spears, but deep in their souls, every goblin knew that they had known a master once and that they would know a master again.

And there was only one line a master could come from.

A bloodline born of death, hate and chaos, which had spawned men and women that were more like gods than any creature born of flesh. Men and women that had led the world into Golden Ages, that had destroyed it, both too many times to remember.

They had been extinct, but no more it seemed. They had risen again, and Ragnok, Lord of the Goblins, had to decide. Did he kill the boy? Arrange a death so that the Goblins had more time? He knew that extermination was impossible. He had heard the tales from his grandfather, of the ritual that had erased the very concept of the line of Morgoth ever dying out from the weave of the world. Or did he kneel to him, pledging his support as his ancestors once had? He knew that if he didn't bend today, then another would, one day. A decade, a century, a millennium, it didn't matter. It would happen.

They were the Overlords. They could be delayed, but never denied.

And from what it appeared, the boy had already ascended to his birthright. Already the wards of Gringotts bent and twisted, the magics recognizing the heir of the masters of old, awaiting his will on whether to fight or submit.

Ragnok urged them to be patient. He would see the boy, before deciding.

Sure enough, there was a knock on his door, and soon a voice "Mr. Harry Potter is here to see you, Mr. President."

"Send him in"

Moments later, he got his first look of the boy. His features were of the Potters, sharp nose, high cheekbones, and untameable black hair.

The _eyes_ however, the eyes were what he dreaded. Green pools of ice, holding within them a terrible cunning and ruthlessness that was as of yet hidden behind a cloud of inexperience. But Ragnok knew that a day would come when the inexperience would be gone. That one day, the boy's true nature would be unveiled for all to see, a day that would come when the stars were right.

That day, the world would know the true meaning of power.

"Well, Mr Potter. I was told you need a new key. Yes?" he asked.

"Yes, that's right." The boy answered in a deceptively soft voice.

"Well, since your identity has been confirmed, one will be ready momentarily. Is there anything Gringotts can do for you in the meantime?"

"Yes. I would like a complete summary of my account, detailing everything I own."

"Very well, Mr. Potter. May I ask if you are aware of just what all you own?" Ragnok asked.

"Not exactly. I didn't see what was written on that parchment." Harry replied.

"That is fine. You see, Mr. Potter, The names here are among the oldest and wealthiest houses in Britain, and with that kind of age, complications are inevitable. You have inherited, from your father, the title of the House of Potter. It means that the lordship of the family, the half-dozen odd titles, and the entailed monies and properties are, or to be exact will soon be, yours. That much is simple.

Apart from that, your godfather, Sirius Orion Black, named you his godson, and the sole heir of, and I quote 'anything and everything' he owned. By the wording, this includes the title of Lord Black, and all that therein is. This too is simple. Whatever allegations may later have been laid upon him, Sirius Black was vouched for to be completely and utterly sane at the time when these designations were made.

And finally, there is the house of Davon. The Davons of Devonshire are another of Britain's Great families, and you are the heir through your mother. Before you ask, Gringotts is not aware of how this came to be, and neither does it care.

The fact that you have claim to these families is simple enough. The complications lie in realizing those claims. The Potters are simple enough. You are the direct heir, and the claim is undisputable. Davon too, is simple, as your claim, though tenuous at best, is the only one, meaning that there is nowhere else for the Lordship to go.

Black, on the other hand, is nowhere as simple. Currently, there is a standing claim by Narcissa Malfoy in the name of her son Draco. He hasn't been tested yet, but the claim is strong. Your claim shall have to best his _and_ satisfy the magics of the Blacks, to even be considered for processing. Apart from that, there are sanctions and directives that have been issued upon the Blacks by both the ministry and the Wizengamot. They can be ignored, especially as the Blacks are a Greater house, but not if they gain the support of the Malfoys.

Which, rest assured, they will, were you to become Lord Black.

And even assuming you were to secure the estates and finalize your claims, there are the estates themselves to consider.

Frankly speaking, the simplest one is Davon, and that is only because it doesn't have anything other than the liquid wealth and the properties. The Potter estate is losing close to five million galleons per quarter, with the profits from extremely lucrative businesses being poured into dead ends. The Blacks are rather better in that regard, but they have their own problems.

Then there is the fact that several of your properties are in dire need of repair and maintenance, which has not been provided even in the slightest in the last decade. There are several other issues, but this is the main bulk of the matter."

Ragnok had been never gladder than he was now that the Overlords had never bothered to get a Gringotts account, keeping their wealth and artefacts all safe in their own tower. It meant that he could avoid telling the boy anything about them till he learned it himself.

"Very well. That being the case, what I want to do is to claim the Potter and Davon inheritances immediately. Once I have them, give me the records of the recent transactions. Regarding the Blacks, I shall deal with the topic later at my own time." Harry said.

"That is understood, Mr. Potter. All you need to do is put on the heir rings. I already have asked for them to be brought here." The goblin replied.

Harry did so, and soon he was facing two enormous mounds of documents, that apparently comprised the records of the Potters and the Davons for the last several years.

Recognizing the move for what it was, Harry gave a careless wave of his hand, shrinking the piles down to the size of a couple of matchboxes.

It cost a fair amount of energy, but he wasn't going to ask the goblin to do it. Being in a goblin's debt for this (or indeed for anything whatsoever) was not how intended for his first day in his correct world to be.

Even as he notched a point up on his mental scoreboard, Harry said to the goblin "Thank you. That will be all. I would now like to be taken to my vaults."

A few minutes later, he was speeding down the tracks to his personal vault, which was apparently numbered seven hundred and thirteen. Soon he was standing in front of it, as the goblin opened it with a small golden key that he then handed to Harry.

"Here, your new key. The old one has been invalidated." It said by way of explanation.

As the green smoke cleared, Harry looked over the pile of golden galleons. As he moved his head around, something in the corner caught his eye. Going closer, he saw that it was a trunk, partially buried under the coins. Deciding that in a bank vault in front of a goblin wasn't the best place to look on what were possibly personal belongings of his parents, Harry shrank the trunk, putting it in his pocket with the dossiers.

Pausing, he took out a shrunken bag out of his pocket. A thought and a flick of his finger had it enlarged to its full size, before he piled a generous portion of the vault into it. Another flick had it shrunken back to the size of a child's glove, which he returned to his pocket.

Soon he was out of the vault and into the cart, speeding down even deeper.

There was a point where he was required to shake something the goblin called 'clankers' that the goblin handed him from one of the pockets of its suit, to scare off a seemingly blind dragon. Apart from that, the trip was uneventful, and silence reigned till they reached the Potter vault. Going in, Harry was somewhat surprised at the sheer amount of the gold and artefact, but his moth remained resolutely shut, unwilling to show a weakness that an unusually strong reaction would mean.

Ignoring the wealth and trinkets, Harry went to what he'd come for, which were the portkeys to the various Potter residences. Picking a few up, he placed them in his pockets, before turning around and leaving the vault.

A few minutes later, he was out of the bank, and ready to begin his shopping.

His first stop was for a proper set of clothes, which meant Twilfitt and Tatting's. He went in, finding a salesgirl and ordering a full wardrobe in the finest fabrics available, with all the assorted socks, scarves, etc.

Magic being what it was, his order was ready within minutes. He saw that the bill came up to somewhere around four hundred and sixty-something galleons. Rounding it up to five hundred galleons, Harry left the shop, mind already on his next purchase. The needed equipment for Hogwarts, cauldrons, ingredients, a magically enlarged and multi-locked trunk, were all duly bought, and all of them placed in magically expanded and lightened shopping bags.

That, in itself, was fine. Harry'd had no problems getting all the stuff. What were beginning to bother him were the stares.

Wherever he went, Harry was followed by stares, with several people trying to get a look on his forehead of all things. Before he had come here, Harry had willed his scar to disappear, which, quite naturally, it had.

So when he saw the fifteenth wizard bend trying to get a proper look on his head, Harry knew something was wrong. These people knew something about him that by all accounts they should have had no idea of, and it was a situation that Harry hated.

What he hated more was that _he _didn't know how _they _knew, but that, thankfully, could be corrected.

In his life, Harry had found that the best and most natural way to acquire information was books. They weren't all knowing, but they were the tried and tested method.

Which was why Harry was currently standing in Flourish and Blotts', as his last stop before he went to get his wand.

The first books Harry bought, naturally, were the books for Hogwarts, year one to seven. Those were followed by quite a few separate tomes on history, magical traditions, etc.

Looking at 'The Rise and Fall of The Dark Arts', Harry checked the index, and received quite a shock when he noticed

Chapter 9: You-Know–Who and Harry Potter.

Reading through it, Harry was left rather shocked, mind spinning with a whirlwind of possibilities.

If what the book said about Harry's popularity had even the slightest grain of truth in it, then it could be useful. Oh yes, it could be so, so useful. But this was neither the time nor the place.

Harry clamped a lid down on his curiosity as he took his purchases to the counter.

Soon, he was out of the shop, and going into the dusty old shop that claimed to be older than the Roman Empire.

There, it was a circus of trying out wand after wand, till he received one with Holly and Phoenix feather, that had Ollivander muttering something about it being incredibly curious.

Since Harry didn't have the slightest idea of what was curious, and cared even less, he tossed the cost (seven galleons), on the counter, and was out of the shop within moments. He walked a few steps before activating his Portkey for Potter Manor, and was gone in a blur of colour.

* * *

And _this _is how this chapter was meant to be. Now that my exams are over, expect a better update rate, both for this story and Camelot.

As always, review/PM for criticisms, suggestions or just to give your opinions.


	3. Chapter 3

And here's chapter 3!

And so early too!

Aren't I nice?

* * *

Sitting in a purely non magical estate belonging to the Potter family, (he'd found out by losing no less than three calculators that magic destroyed all electronics) Harry was angry. He had been reading almost continuously since he came to Potter Manor from Diagon alley, and it didn't look like he would be stopping anytime soon.

There simply was too much to cover. He had gone through years of business transactions, his parents' journals, Hogwarts books, and so much still remained. When he finished one ledger it seemed that there were ten more. Finishing a journal, more seemed to appear by magic.

He had already spent precious hours reading his father's 'marauder's guides', and his mother's years of Hogwarts, and every page he read made him more angry.

Seriously, had his parents ever heard of common sense?

His father went on for page after page, detailing the 'glorious' pranks that he'd played on those 'slimy' Slytherins. How he'd taken satisfaction after vindicating the supposed injustices that they committed on the rest of the Hogwarts populace.

The fact that he'd been wasting his time when he should have been training hard to take over the responsibilities for House Potter was irrelevant, it would seem.

His mother was much better, but not without her own fallacies. For one thing, she seemed downright obsessed with antagonizing any and all purebloods she met. Calling them inbred, genocidal idiots, repeatedly accusing the wizengamot of being a tyrannical oligarchy, it seemed that she had decided to dedicate her life to make enemies out of anyone and everyone that could help her in the world.

Harry could understand where they both were coming from. At least, he though he did.

His father wasn't committing a crime, he was just naïve, trying to enjoy his childhood. His mother too, was just a young woman, a hopeless idealist forced to be a second class citizen in a society she considered horribly backward.

Taking both his parents in consideration, he had, for the first time, been thankful for the upbringing he had.

There weren't many good qualities that Vernon Dursley had, but one Harry found he could respect was that the man was neither naïve nor idealistic. He was a true, hard realist, a man well versed in the practicalities of life. Growing up with him, Harry had never been sheltered in the usual rubbish that everyone his age seemed to have, that the world was a place of fairytales and heroes.

No. the world was an ugly, brutal place. Humans, as he had thought what now seemed a lifetime ago, were not nice. Harry knew this better than most, and he already knew that this simple piece of knowledge was a priceless commodity.

Not that he understood the exact details of just why he was so aware. He knew that other people too, had had lives just as bad, if not worse than him. He had heard the tails, of what happened in the East end of London, of children that never had enough to eat or drink.

Thinking they'd be like him, he had even visited the places. No luck. The same innocence, the same blindness to the true nature of the world that infested every other place was present there too. None of them seemed to be of the same nature as Harry.

None of them saw photos of Buckingham palace, and believed, truly believed with utter conviction and not the usual wishful thinking, that they should be there.

None of them saw bullies in the park and thought '_they should fear me'._

Hard realist that he was, Harry had not hesitated in exploring the possibilities that he may be insane. But he had tested himself again and again, through every method that he could get his hands on, and received the same result. He was very sane, thank you very much.

So in the end, he had accepted what he could not change, and set about making his thoughts reality. That was why he had been so intrigued when he forced tales of the magical world from Petunia, why he was so excited whenever he did something he knew no ordinary man could do.

Speaking of magic, Harry wrenched his thoughts back to what he was doing. His parents had been hopeless, naïve idealists. The good part was that they had been _powerful_ naïve idealists.

Both of them came from extremely wealthy, old families, the sort that had ruled Britain for longer than anyone could remember. That was a very good thing. What hadn't been a good thing was the state of the families.

The Davons were simple. The estate had fallen dormant when Lily's squib father had been born.

All investments had been liquidated, all debts that they owed had been paid off, all debts that were owed to them foreclosed upon. Every single one of the marriage contracts had been bought out, the properties placed under stasis.

In other words, every loose ends was tied, all loopholes covered, so it had been delivered to Harry as a neat little package with the metaphorical bow on the top.

On the other hand, the finances of the House of Potter were a nightmare. Enough said.

Having decided to act, Harry was currently typing up the last of the Potter family anomalies in his computer that he'd installed in the study of the house. Completing his work, he hit 'print', before picking up a manila envelope that he picked up from the pile sitting on his left. After placing the pages coming out from the printer inside, he turned to the last word file on the computer's memory, containing the page after page of decisions that he'd made.

They wouldn't be on magical parchment when he printed them, but his signature and the seal of the Potter of Potter had all the magic he needed.

Completing his task, he stood up. The pages of orders were neatly placed with the anomalies they referred to, everything was signed and sealed. It was time he left.

He didn't know, and wouldn't have cared in the slightest if he did, but his actions were going to make the morning of several eminent personalities very uncomfortable.

Harry left the Manor, going into the small outhouse where the floo was located. His first stop was to the office of his solicitors.

* * *

**One Hour Later**

Ralph Talbot was bored. He was taking a brisk walk to his office building from a delicatessen a few hundred meters away where he'd had a breakfast, and was looking forward to a peaceful day at the office.

Not for the first time, he mused that it really had been lucky for him to land the Potter portfolio the way he had. Before he'd died, Charlus Potter had done almost all of his soliciting himself. He'd retained the services of Talbot, Smith and Boot just to get rid of the endless numbers of 'Great Lawyers' that had dogged his every step.

When he died, it was clear that James had other ideas. The firm had suddenly been given near complete control over the day to day running of the estate. The problem had been that till then the Potter account had been a minor one at best, and had been fobbed upon minor associate after minor associate. It had been a minor associate by the name of Ralph Talbot that had been on the account at the time, and the sheer enormity of the account had raised him all the way to senior partner overnight.

Ralph Talbot was not a bad man at heart. He'd done just what anyone in his position would have done. After all, the Potter fortune went into the tens of Billions of Galleons. Suddenly all of it landing in his hands, on top of the Lord Potter being a snot nosed brat at the tender age of sixteen, well, anyone would have been tempted to steal a quick million or two.

And if the Potter accounts lost several more millions when he simply wasn't looking, so what? There was plenty more where that came from.

It is an unfortunate fact of the world, that the number of people like Ralph Talbot; lazy, greedy, self-righteous and just plain incompetent; far outnumber people of any other sort. Incidentally, in this particular case, _another _Ralph Talbot, one in a similar office several dimensions away, would have been utterly horrified at his counterpart's nature, himself being an immensely honest and competent man. But that's neither here nor there.

As he entered his office building, Mr. Talbot received the first indication that something was wrong. It came in the form of his secretary, who had been worriedly looking around. Spotting the man, he said "Where have you been, Mr. Talbot? Lord Boot has been trying to call you on your mirror for nearly an hour now. He's here, and he's been asking all sorts of questions" the secretary said in a breathless tone.

"Calm down, Jeffrey. I forgot my mirror at home. Who's here asking all sorts of questions?" Talbot asked, annoyed. Why was the idiot bothering him about whichever of their snobbish clients was angry?

"The Heir Potter, sir. He turned an hour ago with a whole lot of papers, and has been in a closed meeting with the senior partners since" the secretary, now identified as Jeffrey, said.

At this colour drained from Talbot's face. The Heir of Potter? That could be very, very bad for both him and the firm.

Indeed, a few dozen feet from where Talbot now stood, hell was raining, and it was not just metaphorical.

There are many spells in the magical world that are capable of in depth scanning with nigh unmatched sensitivity. Several are operated by the Ministry of Magic on a permanent basis. They search out damn near anything. Underage magic detectors can sense out every piece of magic that is done near an active trace, other sensors can detect any hint of Necromantic or Blood magic performed anywhere on the isles. But no scanners matched the ability of a magical human, when he/she went in CYA mode. Even more special was the fact that no magic was used as part of the CYA sensors.

In the light blue building on Phoenix avenue, several CYA systems had been active for the last hour, and now headed for peak performance.

"So what do you want us to do, Mr. Potter?" asked David Brook, one of the senior partners of the firm.

Harry's voice could have frozen Vesuvius. "If you would stop interrupting me, _your lordship,_ you will find that I have stated my orders three times already. I want every knut that has been lost to the Potter estate by your negligence repaid in full. I want a full public apology to be printed in the Daily Prophet tomorrow, and I want every single man involved in this out of their jobs within the hour. All that remains is whether you will obey these orders or not, and that is the only thing that will decide whether my business remains here or not."

Had any of the functionaries dared to, they would have screamed quite loudly at these words.

CYA stands for Cover Your Arse, and Harry Potter was violating every single one of its rules.

Everyone around the table knew that heads were going to roll, both figuratively and literally. They also knew that the terms he was stating were completely outrageous, and knew that he knew that too.

Both sides acknowledged that a scapegoat was needed.

Currently the obvious scapegoat was the oaf marching in from the street, but whether one would suffice or not, no one knew, and the first priority for everyone was to keep their own names off the list.

Speaking of the oaf, there was a knock on the door.

"Come in" said the terse voice of Michael Boot.

The door opened to reveal the sweating figure of Ralph Talbot. Seeing him, Harry's lip curled in disgust, even as something unholy burned in his eyes. The temperature of the room dropped, breathing becoming a tad more difficult for everyone except him.

Ralph Talbot, meanwhile, stumbled into his room, allowing Harry to discern at once the probable nature of his breakfast. Liquid, was what he thought.

He wasn't quite right, as Talbot _had_ had what he called a 'little drink to keep off the cold', but it was hardly enough to make a practiced drunkard like him falter. No, that state was due to his terror.

"Go-good morning, gentlemen" he stammered.

No one responded, even though it _was_ a rather nice morning and they _were_ gentlemen.

"Hello, Mr. Talbot, how nice of you to grace us with your presence at last." Harry said in a languid drawl that over the last hour had become akin to a funeral bell for the occupants of the room.

"He-Hello, Mr. Potter. I'm so-sorry I'm late. How nice to see you here. But why did you bother to come, I could have come to the manor, sa-saved you the trouble." Talbot said.

"Oh, no Mr. Talbot, I could never miss such a nice opportunity to get to know you and your colleagues, after all. Come, sit, please."

The man did. He sat, shaking on the offered chair.

As he did, the atmosphere of the room changed. The faint coldness that had crept in when Harry had first seen him intensified to a point that some of the assembled wizards and witches actually shivered, while breathing became nearly impossible. It was then that the madness that had so far been barely glimpsed upon within Harry's eyes revealed itself in all its horrible, ugly glory, and everyone within the room that could sense such things became very, very afraid.

If there had been any doubts before, they were gone now. There was something soulless within Harry Potter, something that whispered of fire and death, of blood and conquest. It was something several people in the room had heard legends about, something that still was regarded nothing short of a miracle for wizardkind, albeit one where the sheer wonder was matched only by the horror.

As several of the minds in the room diverted themselves in old legends, they were brought back to the present by the voice that spoke.

"So, Mr. Talbot. Pleasantries aside, I assume you know why you're here?" A nod. "Excellent. So, instead of wasting too much time, I just want you to give me one good reason to leave you alive." Harry said, in a tone that sounded as if he was discussing the weather.

"I mean you know I have the right to, don't you. The seventh promise? The right to extract vengeance of the blood upon whoever and whatever wrongs the house of Potter in any way, shape or form?" Harry continued. When he'd first read that in the Potter Clan Charter, he'd laughed himself silly, before realizing it was legitimate.

Apparently, it went back to the thirteenth century, when a particularly corrupt duo of chief warlock and minister had been selling all sorts of rights and privileges practically in the open. Even by those standards, it was _very _open ended.

It should be, as it had cost ten million galleons _then_ to acquire it.

Not to mention the millions paid to mercenaries to kill off everyone who knew (or came to know) about it for the next three centuries, after which it became non-revokable.

Every major family had these 'special permits' or 'promises' scattered throughout their history. Harry just happened to luck out twice so far that both the Davons and the Potters had collected them like chocolate frog cards.

So while families usually managed five or six, he had over a dozen _each._

Anyway, going back to Talbot, the man paled to the bone, starting to sputter.

Harry wasn't having any of it, though. The question had been a rhetorical one, anyway.

The man would die, but not so soon and not publicly.

"Well, I'll make this simple. Your services are terminated. Unless you are fired by your firm, I shall withdraw my account from them, and make the whole issue public in the _Prophet_. If you and your firm can repay me at least three-fourths of what you've caused me to loose, I shall not be taking legal action. Your colleagues have been haranguing me for the last hour about what I want, and this is the absolute minimum."

"Taken, Mr. Potter. I'll draw up the contract to that effect." Boot said, capitalizing on the chance.

"Oh and there are several orders that I need carried out immediately regarding the assets themselves." Harry said.

"I'll take care of them, Mr. Potter. Please come with me." Said David Brooks.

Soon Harry was sitting in Brooks' private office, while the man went over the list of instructions.

"Allright, Mr. Potter. Your orders are understood. I'll place a rush order on the processing. You do realize that a lot of people are going to be rather angry with you?" he asked conversationally.

"Yes, I do. That is something I'm willing to accept. Being robbed blind is not."

"I understand. Still, it may be a good idea to take a few minutes and review them. For example, here you have ordered for a whole crew of over three dozen to be fired. These are hard men, Mr. Potter, and they have families to support."

"They should have thought about the families before Merlin and Arthur came on the rolls as overtime workers, shouldn't they? Oh and Mr. Brooks, don't worry about them doing anything. Turn the page, you'll see why." Harry said.

"Oh, I see" he said, staring at the order for all of them to be charged with theft from a minor, defrauding an ancient and Noble family, and a whole lot of other crimes, that Harry had managed to get to stick.

All these would ensure that the men and women that had been stealing from him for so long, and that he could've been in serious danger from if he left them out, would be far too busy dealing with their problems, till he ensured proper security and management of his estate.

That though, set the tone for the rest of the meeting. One by one Harry gave his orders, and the poor man across the desk from him was just as unprepared for every surprise as he had been for the last. Still, within a few hours it was over, and Harry was back in his house in another couple of hours.

In the days that had passed since his first visit to Diagon, Harry had gone through the entire first year syllabus in all his subjects.

He'd brewed every single potion, mastered every single spell, and perfected every piece of theory.

Because Harry really had no intention to spend a lifetime at the castle he was going. He would be done with, and out of Hogwarts as soon as he could, as he had plans and they involved him being a full adult, instead of a student.

Harry couldn't help but give a slight shiver, as he thought of his future. Ever since his entry into his proper world, the dreams had been ever more insistent than before. He dreamed of men and women leading troops into battles that changed maps of the world, of raising monsters and nightmares, and ruling over all that he could see from the pinnacle of a dark tower. Harry wasn't aware why he had such dreams, he didn't particularly understand what they meant.

He did, however know one thing.

Sooner or later, come hell or high water, he would make them true.

* * *

Done.

A bit shorter than I'd have liked, but what can you say. I can't control my muse, and it seems rather stubbornly stuck on only producing chapters for Camelot. This is all I've managed to coax out, but I do promise to improve in the future.

As always, review/PM for anything.

Ciao

blackshadow111


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